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Church, no theological writer has denied its possibility. The most ultra of Calvinists admit that some infants, dying in infancy, are saved, and as we have already seen, the Westminster Confession assumes that these are "regenerated and saved by Christ through the Spirit, which worketh when, where, and how he pleaseth." Even Luther, who contended that no soul can be saved without faith, contrived to satisfy his own mind with the incomprehensible notion that "a certain beginning of faith, which, nevertheless, is the work of God, exists in infants, according to their measure and proportion, of which we are ignorant.'

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Our author's position is thus defined:

We are fully aware of the difficulty of reasoning, or of using analogies in a subject which, like this, loses itself in inscrutable mysteries of psychology, and hence we venture only to the extent of what we deem the beaten path of exegesis. We offer no dogma beyond these simple truths: 1. That children are in a state of salvation through the atonement; 2. That the effect of redeeming love to them is direct, and not dependent upon any outward ordinance; 3. That it is not merely legal and nominal, but, being expressed in such words as justification, justification of life, righteousness, illumination, membership in the kingdom of heaven, there must also be a moral effect wrought upon them. The extent, manner, and nature of this moral effect we are not called upon to assert, are not able to explain, cannot explain it even in adults; but we hold that it has the efficacy to restore children to the favor and kingdom of God.—Page 188.

Alluding to it again in the preface, he remarks:

A dispute about words I decline. The meaning intended will be best understood by a candid and close reading of the argument. If the word regeneration is to be used at all in reference to the moral state of infants, it is to be used only in that qualified sense. I have given it in chapter four. We do not, however, recommend the use of the term in this application, because, being true only in a qualified or elemental sense, it would be liable to misapprehension and abuse.

With every statement made, save one, every Methodist will cordially agree without hesitation. We believe with all our heart, and soul, and mind, and strength, that the atonement avails for little children, for all of them, placing them in the divine favor, and constituting them heirs of the kingdom of God. If they die in infancy, it secures their eternal salvation. If they live, they enter upon accountable life, the recipients of

Divine grace, not the children of wrath, but the "prisoners of hope." But we confess a doubt in regard to the third item, which speaks of the "moral effect" wrought in children by virtue of the atonement. Viewing the matter from our author's own standpoint, it is certainly unwise to affirm that all infants are regenerate. Dr. Hibbard himself says that the term is not applicable to them in the same sense in which it applies to a believing adult. Assuming this, it is clear that we ought not to confuse language by needlessly applying the same term to different things. To take a word or phrase familiar to the public ear, and attempt to fix upon it a "qualified sense,' is to court misapprehension and misrepresentation. "Cursed be he that removeth his neighbor's landmark." Let us not clip the current coin of the realm, even if we try to repair the evil by putting on it our individual stamp to show how much it has been shorn of its original value.

Again, who can tell how far the power of God, dealing with little children in their unconscious infancy, purifies, renews, transforms them into the divine image? Who knows that all infants are truly regenerate, that the work done in them is such as to warrant the use of the term? Dr. Hibbard argues that there can be no valid title to heaven without a fitness for it, that children have this title, and, therefore, must be "new in order to be fit for it. Yet he says in so many

creatures words:

This grace changes their legal and moral, condition so as to render them fit for and entitled to eternal life, but does not remove their natural depravity. . . . As in the regenerated adult, it leaves them with a fallen nature, which, of itself, would lead them away from God.-Page 156.

If the seeds of corruption may remain in the regenerate adult, to chill devotion, and perpetuate spiritual conflict, and he yet enjoy a title to heaven, where is the proof that in the case of the infant, where depravity is dormant and inoperative, the work of purification must be even begun before the child can be an heir of the kingdom? If we do not need dying grace till we are about to die, wherefore do we need before its hour grace to live accountable life or fit us for heavenly existence? To those who die in infancy, there will come a renewal which will wholly fit them for heaven. To those who

live, there will come preventing grace at the very dawn of moral intelligence. Dying or living, the infant sustains the same relation to the divine law, and has the same title to heaven as the believer; and what more need we know, either for curiosity or for consolation? The fact is that when we reason from the word of God in regard to the relation which infants sustain to the atonement and the economy of grace, we are like Hopeful in the dark river, we "feel the bottom and it is good." But when we undertake to infer when and in what way the work of the Holy Spirit must be wrought, we are “in' wandering mazes lost." That no one whose eternal doom is not yet fixed is wholly surrendered to the dominion of his inborn depravity we can readily believe. We also admit that God may impart a gracious influence to the soul of an unconscious infant. At the same time we feel that there is a limit to knowledge in this direction, and the area of certainty is not large. Therefore, as Dr. Hibbard disclaims all anxiety in regard to the word "regenerate" in this discussion, and affirms that it can be applied to infants only in a "qualified or rudimental sense," he will agree with us in the opinion that it is clearly inexpedient to disturb the current use of the term by a new application of it, especially in view of the fact that the work of the Holy Spirit in the soul is a mystery too deep for us to fathom. It is enough to know that God loves little children; that the atonement, with its fullness of grace, reaches them; and that, until they forfeit it by voluntary transgression and rejection of divine mercy, they have a divine pledge of all needed help, and inward working of the Spirit for preparation or for strength.

The second topic indicated, the relation of little children to the Church, is one of no small interest. Our author defines his position thus:

Here is no hyperbole, no exaggeration, no strong language that needs to be pared down and qualified till it suits the sentiments of a remiss or worldly Church; but a literal and glorious declaration of the Head of the Church, a command to Now recognize them as legitimate members of the spiritual commonwealth.-Page 210.

But an impression often obtains that the Church membership of an infant differs somehow essentially from the Church membership of an adult believer; that after reaching responsible years, the believing disciple who was baptized in infancy still requires

another process for admission into the Church proper; that baptism, indeed, unites to the covenant, but some other condition is required for uniting with the Church. The difficulty seems to be in determining what relation a baptized child holds to denominational communion. Does baptism confer the full immunities of denominational Church life? In answering this question, we must state that all creeds, symbols of faith, forms of Church government, or special covenant obligations, such as denominational branches of the catholic Church may adopt, are only their views of Scripture doctrine and duty, and are applied only as prudential tests of fitness for adult membership. . . . These denominational tests do not have the effect to admit the person to a new Church different from that to which the baptized child belongs, but only to supply an adequate test of adult membership in the old Church, the catholic, New Testament, Abrahamic Church. Such test becomes requisite only upon a new condition of the candidate, namely, a condition of personal responsibility. The fitness and Church rights of the child during childhood are determined on other grounds. But in either case, the Church is the same. If denominational ecclesiasticism assumes a higher ground than this, it does so by usurpation against the spirit and intent of the Church charter.

We say, therefore, that the child, though admitted to the same Church of the adult believer, and entitled to all the rights and privileges which its age and capacity require, yet, upon reaching responsible years, should answer for itself, pro forma, and before the Church, touching all fundamental points of doctrine, and for the obligations of its baptism and Church covenant. . . . In the one case the child had a right of membership vesting in him through the unconditional grace of the atonement; in the other, the same right is perpetuated on condition of obedience, faith, and confession.-Pages 211, 212.

It is a matter of importance to the Church, that we adopt the true scriptural theory in regard to the relation which infants sustain to it. Whether an irfant, as such, is to be accounted an actual member of the local organization, seems, indeed, a thing of small moment; but it assumes significance when we consider that whatever the relation is, it remains in full force until the child having attained the age of accountability, necessitates by his own action a change of that relation. In defining his ecclesiastical status there is danger on either hand. If the child upon whose mind religious truth begins to dawn finds himself repelled from the Church, on account of something in him of which he is not conscious, and which he does not understand, evil is done. If he is made to feel that there is no place for him among the people of God until he undergoes certain spiritual processes of which his age renders

him incapable, he will conclude, logically too, that nothing remains for him to do at present but to live on in sin and condemnation. A very little child will see that he is under no obligation to attempt impossibilities. If he finds, from the language of his teachers, that they have no expectation of his being a Christian now, he will cease to try or to hope to be one. Nor will it help the difficulty very materially for parents, and pastor, and Sabbath-school teacher to refrain from revealing to the child their views of the case. Silence is often more significant than speech. If those to whom he looks for instruction think that he cannot now serve God acceptably, he will be very sure to find it out. He will feel it, too, in the depths of his soul, sometimes trembling at the dire necessity, sometimes contemplating it with a sense of relief as a furlough from duty, an opportunity to try "the pleasures of sin for a

season."

And can this be true? Does childhood belong to sin, as infancy belongs to God? Between the gracious state of the unconscious babe and the peace and blessedness of the believer, must there of necessity stretch a dreary wilderness of wasted years, a very region and shadow of death? Is it a part of some inexorable plan of the Author of life, that in our journey to the promised rest we must toil over a wide and flinty desert, where is no rain, nor dew, nor running stream, nor springing grass, nor shadowing tree, a solitude of silence and desolation? We cannot accept any theory which involves conclusions so utterly at variance with the whole tenor of the Gospel of the Son of God.

But, on the other hand, to assure little children that they are already members of this or that Church seems almost equally objectionable. The plan of birthright memberships is very apt to be ruinous to spirituality and holy living. It is burdened with embarrassments without number. If children from the hour of their birth or their baptism are accounted members of the local Church, when will you subject them to regular Church discipline? At what age, and on what conditions, will you admit them to the table of the Lord? If we take the position that they are not amenable to Church law, nor to be admitted to the eucharist till they give satisfactory evidence of true piety, their membership becomes a merely

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